Bau - Orientation

Identification.
The name "Bau" was originally that of a house site (
yavu
) at Kubuna on the Wainibuka River in the interior of Viti Levu, the
main island of Fiji, but today "Bau" usually refers to the
small offshore islet, home of the Paramount chiefs, and
"Kubuna" to those who claim kinship with the chiefly
families, or those who "go with" Bau in the wider politics
of all Fiji.

Location.
The Kubuna moved down the Wainibuka and then the Wailevu (Rewa) river
valleys to occupy the northeastern coast of the Rewa Delta and the Kaba
Peninsula Before making a home for their chiefs on the small islet of
Bau, at 17°58′ S, 178°37′ E. This islet is
no more than 8 hectares in extent and 15 meters above sea level at the
highest point.

Demography.
When Bau was at the height of its power, the population on the islet is
said to have been 4,000. The paucity of available data permits no more
than a guess as to the number of its supporters. Mid-nineteenth-century
estimates varied between 100,000 and 300,000 for all of Fiji, of whom
perhaps half supported Bau, but traditions tell of disastrous
epidemics—associated with the earlier arrival of
Europeans—ravaging the population by as much as 40 percent. The
1986 census revealed Fijians in the provinces that "go
with" Bau totaling 175,000.

linguistic Affiliation.
The language is one of 300 "communalects" (dialects
largely confined to one community) that exist among the contemporary
population of 300,000 Fijians. In the early nineteenth century, a lingua
franca based on the communalects of Bau and Rewa was used by Fijians
from different parts of the islands when they wished to communicate, and
European missionaries chose Bau for translation of the Bible.
Europeanized Bauan, sometimes also called Old High Bauan, has now become
the basis for Standard Fijian, which is in the Oceanic Branch of
Austronesian languages.

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